Word Origin & History

discipline early 13c., from O.Fr. descepline, from L. disciplina "instruction given to a disciple," from discipulus (see disciple). Sense of "treatment that corrects or punishes" is from notion of "order necessary for instruction." The Latin word is glossed in O.E. by þeodscipe.Meaning "branch of instruction or education" is first recorded late 14c. Meaning "military training" is from late 15c.; that of "orderly conduct as a result of training" is from c.1500. The verb is attested from c.1300. Related: Disciplined; disciplines.

Example Sentences for disciplined

The woman before her had been disciplined by sorrow to sternest self-control.

You'll make mistakes; you'll break rules; you'll have to be disciplined.

What is wanting is disciplined taste, more variety, more severity.

Even before his mother saw it, she knew she was going to be disciplined.

He formed the rough Bohemian peasantry into a disciplined army.

The native levies cannot be compared with the disciplined troops.

He was disciplined in all the natural science of his predecessors.

A country and an army—coherent, disciplined comrades in arms.

But it was no longer the disciplined and docile Democracy of old.

The horror has not decreased, but nerves and sight are beginning to be disciplined to it.